The countess drew around her her mantle of black lace, that had slipped from her shoulders, and shrouded herself in it as in a cloud, then stepped up to Ernestine, who had also risen from her seat, raised her hand, and said in a tone of menace, "You will repent this."
Ernestine calmly returned her gaze. "I scarcely think so, Countess Worronska. Thanks to my occupations, I stand entirely outside of the sphere where you could harm me."
"I could kill you!" hissed the countess, gasping for breath, while the blood rushed to her head and the room grew dark before her eyes.
"Oh, no, you neither could nor would," said Ernestine with cutting contempt. "You would not afford the world the spectacle of so bold a champion of our freedom ending her days in penal confinement."
"You are right,--it would be folly to commit a crime when easier means would gain the same end. I will deal you a death-blow, and your life shall bleed slowly away, and none of our excellent laws can touch me. I will wrest from you the man whom you love. I will,--and, trust me, what I will I can."
Ernestine said not a word. She was benumbed, as if by a blow. She did not see the countess leave the room,--she saw only, by the glare of the burning torch that the wretched woman had hurled into her breast, her own heart.
Was she, then, in love? And with whom?
CHAPTER VIII.
"WHEN WOMEN HOLD THE REINS."
Breathless with rage, the Worronska descended the stairs and left the house. A groom was driving a splendid carriage-and-four up and down before the house. She beckoned to him; he drove up and sprang down to a.s.sist his mistress, who, mounted upon the box, took the reins and whip, and, relieved by being able to vent her wrath upon some living thing, cut viciously at her impatient horses. The groom sprang nimbly into his place behind her, and away like the wind went the modern Victory in her triumphal chariot, as if rushing to breathe vengeance and hate into hosts fighting upon the battle-plain.
"Is it possible that that hectic, ill-tempered girl can rival me with such a man as Mollner?" she said to herself. "But shame on me!" she instantly added, "let me not, in my anger, prove a slanderer! She is beautiful, and a thousand times wiser than I,--but, curse her! I could strangle her with this hand!"
The pa.s.sionate woman felt hot tears coursing down her cheeks. She struggled for composure; her chest heaved with the effort to breathe freely. She encouraged her horses to still greater speed, so that her carriage fairly rocked from side to side. She was glorious to behold in her wrath, as she both urged and restrained the spirited animals,--fit emblems of her own wild pa.s.sions.
"But I will show her who she is and who I am," she murmured. "That I should be insulted by this German prude!" And she gave the near horse a cut with her whip, making him rear wildly and then drag on the others in his headlong career. In a few minutes the village was pa.s.sed through, and the village curs desisted from barking at the horses"
heels, and retired growling to their homes. The steep descent of the hill upon which the village was built was close at hand.
"Madame," said the groom to her in Russian, "look there!" He pointed to a sign-post by the wayside, warning travellers of the steep road. But it was too late; the countess needed both hands and all her strength to hold in her steeds, and could not reach the handle of the brake.
"We shall get down safely," she cried, holding the heads of the four n.o.ble animals well in rein. But as the road made a slight turn she recognized in the foot-path before her a well-known form. Her face flushed crimson,--it was Mollner. She no longer saw the steep descent,--she did not see that she must pa.s.s the church, where service was held at the time and all vehicles were required by law to pa.s.s at a walk; she only saw Johannes, whom she would overtake at all hazards.
She gave the horses the rein, and they rushed on as if for their lives.
Then Johannes turned his head towards her and made signs to her, but she did not understand them. He stood still. She thundered past the church, and two or three peasants, disturbed in their devotions, came running out and looked menacingly after her. Johannes made signs to her again, more earnestly than before, and now she saw that he meant she should look where she was going,--in the road just before her there was a group of children playing. She tried to turn aside--tried to hold in her horses, but in vain. Neither horses nor carriage could be guided or restrained in the impetus that they had gained from the steep descent, and they tore madly on directly towards the children. Johannes, in the greatest alarm, jumped over the hedge dividing the foot-path from the road. The children scattered in terror.
There was a shriek. The countess looked around,--no child was near.
Whence came that cry? It came from under her wheels. At that moment Johannes reached the carriage, seized the leaders by their bridles and brought them to a stand-still. Then he stooped down and drew forth from beneath the carriage a lovely little girl, quite senseless. With a wrathful glance at the countess, he took the child in his arms, and murmured, "I thought so!"
"Is she dead?" asked the countess, pale with fright, and restraining with difficulty her excited steeds, while the groom put large stones in front of the wheels.
"Not dead," replied Mollner, "but no doubt severely injured."
"Oh, what an unfortunate accident!" cried the countess, quite beside herself.
"It was no accident!" Johannes rejoined severely, "but the inevitable consequence of your furious driving, Countess Worronska."
He leaned against the hedge, and began, without a word more, to look into the extent of the child"s injuries. "This is what comes of it," he muttered with suppressed indignation, ""when women hold the reins.""
"Mollner, do not reproach me," the countess entreated. He paid her no attention,--he was engrossed with the poor little victim upon his knee.
"Whose child is it?" he asked of her playmates, who came flocking around him.
"It is Keller"s Kathchen!" cried the children. "Ah, our dear little Kathchen!"
Some crowded about Johannes, others ran to the church to call the parents. Johannes tenderly bound up the child"s bleeding forehead with his pocket-handkerchief, and carefully drew off its thick jacket to examine the shoulder-joint, that seemed to be broken.
The Worronska devoured the scene with envious eyes. She saw him only,--the grace of his motions, the tender care that he lavished upon the child,--and, like molten lava, the words burst from her lips, "Oh that I were that child!"
Johannes did not even hear her.
"The arm must go," he said sadly. "The best that you can do. Countess Worronska, is to drive to town as quickly as you can and send out Professor Kern or some other skilful surgeon."
"Mollner," she implored, "I cannot go until you have forgiven me!"
"I pray you make haste, madame. Your first duty is to do what you can for the child; and I am afraid you will suffer from any delay, for there come the enraged peasants."
Like bees disturbed in their hive, a menacing, murmuring throng came flocking out of the church, and in a minute surrounded the strangers.
"What has happened?"
"Who is hurt?"
"A child run over!"
These words ran from mouth to mouth, and every one pressed forward to know whether it was his child. But alarm soon gave way to indignation,--for Kathchen, pretty little roguish Kathchen Keller, was the pet of the village. All loved her, and were shocked and grieved to see the blooming flower so ruthlessly cut down. The child had never harmed a living thing. Every one had been gladdened by her bright smile and taken delight in her chubby innocent face. And that this dear, artless little creature should be sacrificed to the mad humour of an arrogant stranger! What business had this crazy woman in their quiet village, disturbing the repose of their holiday and destroying the poor peasants" most precious possessions?
Maledictions were the answers to all these questions, that arose instantly in the minds of the villagers, already heated by wine, and their next thought was of revenge.
"Curses upon the vile woman," began one aloud, "to drive so madly!"
"Where were your eyes?" asked another. "Such a child is not a dog, to be driven over! Could you not turn aside?"
"She thought a peasant"s child was of no consequence," said a third.
"Who ever saw four horses harnessed together!" exclaimed several.
"There is no end to the insolent pranks of these city folk."
"Thunder and lightning!" cried a st.u.r.dy, broad-shouldered peasant.
"Stop talking, and let us have her before the magistrate."
"Yes, yes! to the burgomaster"s!" shouted the crowd.
Johannes was in a most trying position. He still had the child in his arms, no one had taken her from him. He could not carry her away,--he dared not leave the defenceless woman to the insults of the mob. He tried to speak to the people, but in vain; they paid no attention to him. They had heard and seen the countess rattle past the church a few minutes before, and all their fury was concentrated upon her.
Johannes made a sign to the countess, who stood up in her carriage, regarding the people with contempt, to drive on instantly; but she cried, "_Croyez-vous que je craigne la canaille? Je ne quitterai pas cette place sans que vous veniez avec moi!_"