"Oh, that is different. I began to fancy that something was going on at Wilicza, and that my presence here was looked on as a danger."
Wanda made no reply. She saw now how extremely imprudent she had been to offer battle on this ground, where her adversary showed himself so completely her match. He parried every blow, returned her every thrust, and entangled her hopelessly in her own words, and he had withal the advantage of coolness and composure on his side, while she was on the verge of losing her self-command. She saw plainly that she could make no head in this direction, so she took a rapid resolution, and boldly tore away the net which her own unguarded words had woven about her.
"Lay aside your tone of scorn," said she, fixing her grave dark eyes full upon him. "I know that it is not meant for the matter we are discussing, but solely and altogether for me. You oblige me at last to touch upon a point which I should certainly have left buried in the past, were it not that you are continually recurring to it. Whether such conduct is chivalrous, I will not stay to inquire, but you must feel as well as I do that it has brought us into a position which is becoming intolerable. I offended you once, and you have never forgiven me to the present day. Well"--she paused a moment, and drew a long breath----"I behaved ill to you then. Will that suffice you?"
It was a strange apology, made even stranger by the haughty tone in which it was offered, the tone of a proud woman who knows right well that it involves no humiliation to herself if she stoops to ask pardon of a man for having made him the toy of her caprices. Countess Morynska was, doubtless, fully conscious of this, or she would hardly have deigned to speak the words. They produced, however, a very different effect from that which she had expected.
Waldemar had stepped a pace or two back; his eyes seemed to look her through and through. "Really?" he said, slowly, emphasising every word.
"I did not know that Wilicza was worth _that_ to your party!"
"You think ..." cried Wanda, vehemently.
"I think that once already I have had to pay dearly for being the owner of this place," he interrupted her with a warmth which showed that he too was roused at length; his tone told of a long pent-up, rankling irritation. "In those days the object in view was to open Wilicza to my mother and her interests; now this Wilicza is to be preserved to those same interests, cost what it may. But they forget that I am no longer an inexperienced boy. You yourself have opened my eyes, Countess, and now I shall keep them open at the risk of having my conduct stigmatised by you as unchivalrous."
Wanda had grown deadly pale. Her right hand, hanging by her side, clenched itself convulsively in the velvet folds of her habit.
"Enough," she said, controlling herself with an effort. "I see that you wish for no reconciliation, and that you have recourse to insults in order to make any understanding between us possible. Well and good, I accept the enmity you offer me.
"You are mistaken," replied Waldemar, more calmly. "I offer you no enmity. That would indeed be a lack of chivalry towards ..."
"Towards whom?" cried the young Countess, with flashing eyes, as he paused.
"Towards my brother"s promised wife!"
A thrill pa.s.sed through Wanda. Strange that the word should strike her as with a sudden pang. Involuntarily her eyes sought the ground.
"I have postponed offering you my congratulations. .h.i.therto," continued Waldemar. "Pray accept them to-day."
The Countess bowed her head in silent acknowledgment. She herself knew not what closed her lips, but at that moment she found it impossible to answer him. It was the first time this subject had been touched on between them, and the simple mention of it seemed to suffice, for Waldemar added no syllable to his congratulatory speech.
The yellow flame had long ago died out of the sky, and in its place had come a dreary, murky grey. The evening breeze swept through the half-stripped bushes and rustled among the crests of the tall trees, still partly decked with their gay many-tinted foliage; drooping and faded it hung now from the branches, leaf after leaf fluttered noiselessly to the ground, strewing the gra.s.s and the surface of the little lake. Through the scantily clothed boughs came a sort of low-whispered autumnal lament for the beauty and life which had been so blooming and verdant in the old sunshiny days, but was now fast sinking into its grave. Gloomy and weird the forest loomed across with all its fantastic, indistinct shadows; and here in the vaporous meadow the moist veil rose, ever thicker and thicker, hovered hither and thither, finally ma.s.sing itself over the small piece of water. There it remained, a white spectral vision, floating uneasily backwards and forwards, stretching out its great humid arms to the two figures standing on the brink, as though it would have gathered them to it, shaping the while before their eyes a thousand forms and pictures, one pressing back, one flowing into the other in endless variation.
Nothing was to be heard but the monotonous sough of the wind, the rustle of the falling leaves--yet stay! what sound was that which, through it all, came like the distant, distant roar of the sea, while lo! out from the bosom of the seething mists a Fata Morgana rose to view. There appeared the green branches of mighty secular beeches, all flooded in the last golden glow of evening, the blue surging sea in its vast immeasurable greatness. Slowly the burning sun sank into the waters, and out from the stream of light, which at its contact spread far over the waves, arose once more the fairy city of the legend in all its halo of mystic fancy and enchanted splendour. The treasure kingdom again opened its untold stores, and once again, fuller now and more resonant than in that hour on the Beech Holm, rang out the bells of Vineta.
The old tale had not held good in the case of the two who had lived through that charmed hour together. Hostile and as strangers they had parted; hostile and as strangers they had since met, and so they now stood face to face. The youth had become a cold stern man, pursuing in proud reserve his solitary way through life; the child had ripened into a happy beautiful woman, but to neither of them had come again that which yon hour had brought them. Only now, on this dreary autumnal evening did it all quicken into life anew; and, as the remembrance was wafted over to them, the years which lay between faded away; hatred, strife, and bitterness, all grew dim; nothing remained but that deep inexpressible aspiration towards an unknown happiness which had first been called into being by the spirit bells of Vineta--nothing but the old sunset dream.
Waldemar was the first to rouse himself. He pa.s.sed his hand rapidly across his brow, as though by an effort of will he would shake off all these fancies and drive away the vision.
"We should do much better to return to the forester"s house, and wait there for the hunting party," said he, hastily. "The twilight is falling, and one can hardly breathe in this sea of mist."
Wanda a.s.sented at once. She, too, had seen enough of the phantasmagoria contained in that sea of mist, and was anxious by any means to put an end to the interview. She raised her habit and prepared to go. Waldemar threw his gun over his shoulder, and they were about to start when suddenly he paused.
"I offended you with my suspicions a little while ago, and perhaps I was unjust; but--be candid with me--was the half apology to which you condescended really intended for Waldemar Nordeck, or not rather for the master of Wilicza, with whom a reconciliation is sought in order that he may abet, or at least shut his eyes to, that which is pa.s.sing on his estates."
"So you know ...?" interrupted Wanda, and then stopped in confusion.
"Enough to take from you all apprehension of having been indiscreet just now. Did they really think me so unintelligent that I alone should be blind to what is already subject of conversation in L----, namely, that a party movement is going on, of which Wilicza is the seat, and my mother the soul and centre. There could be no danger in your owning to me what the whole neighbourhood knows. _I_ knew it before I came here."
Wanda was silent. She tried to read in his face how much he knew, but Waldemar"s features were undecipherable as ever.
"But that is not the question now," he began again. "I was asking for an answer to my question. Was that act of self-conquest a voluntary one, or--had the task been set you? Oh, do not start so indignantly. I only ask, and you can surely forgive me for looking distrustfully on any show of friendliness on your part, Wanda."
The young Countess would probably have taken these words as a fresh offence, and have answered them in an angry spirit, had they not conveyed a something which disarmed her in spite of herself. A change had come over Waldemar since he had looked into that mist yonder. He was hostile and frigid no longer; his voice, too, had quite another sound--it was softer, almost subdued. A little shock pa.s.sed through Wanda as, for the first time for years, he p.r.o.nounced her name.
"If my aunt at one time made me the unconscious instrument of her plans, you should accuse her, and not me," she replied, in a low tone; and, as she uttered them, some invisible power seemed to rob her words of their sting. "I suspected nothing of it. I was a child following the impulses of my caprices, but now"--she raised her head proudly--"now I am accountable to no one for what I do and leave undone, and the words I spoke just now were spoken on my own responsibility alone. You are right, they were not intended for Waldemar Nordeck; since he and I met, he has never given me cause to seek or even to wish for a reconciliation. My object was to force the master of Wilicza into raising for once his closed vizier. There is no need for that now. This interview of ours has taught me what I suspected before, that we have in you a bitter, a merciless adversary, who will use his power at the decisive moment, even though in so doing he must trample all family, all natural ties under foot."
"To whom should these ties bind me, pray?" asked Waldemar. "To my mother, perhaps, you think? My mother and I know very well how matters stand between us. She is less disposed than ever to forgive me for inheriting the Nordeck wealth, instead of her younger son. Or perhaps to Leo? Well, it may be that some brotherly love exists between us; but I do not think it would hold good if our ways should chance to cross, at all events not on his part."
"Leo would willingly have met you as a brother, if you had not made it too hard for him," interrupted Wanda. "You were always reserved and distant even with him; but there were times formerly when he could draw nearer you, when the fact that you were brothers could be discerned.
But now it would be asking too much of his pride to endeavour to break through the icy barrier you oppose to him and to all those about you.
It would be quite in vain for your mother and brother to come to you with demonstrations of affection; they would be met by a hard indifference which cares neither for them nor for any one in this world."
She stopped, for Waldemar was standing close to her side, and his eyes were riveted on her.
"You judge very correctly, very unsparingly," he said, slowly. "Have you never asked yourself what has made me hard and austere? There was a time when I was not so, at least not to you--when a word, a look could guide me, when I lent myself patiently to every whim. You might have done much with me then, Wanda--almost anything. That you were not willing, that my handsome, chivalrous brother even in those days carried off the palm was, after all, but natural. What could I have been to you? But you must understand that the events of those days formed a crisis in my life, and a man, who--like myself, for instance--has no turn for constant melancholy, naturally grows hard and suspicious after such an experience. Now, indeed, I look upon it as a piece of good fortune that my boyish romance was nipped in the bud--else my mother would infallibly have conceived the idea of repeating in our persons the drama which was performed here twenty years ago, when a Nordeck brought home a Morynska as his bride. You, a girl of sixteen, would possibly have submitted to the expressed will of your family, and I--should have shared my father"s fate. From that we have both been preserved, and now the whole thing is over and buried in the past. I only wished to recall to your mind that _you_ have no right to reproach me if I seem hard to you and yours.--Will you let me go with you now to the forester"s house?"
Wanda followed him in silence. Angry and ready for the fray as she had been at first, the turn finally taken by the conversation had struck the weapons from her hand. To-day again they parted as foes, but they both felt that henceforth the nature of the struggle between them was changed--possibly the struggle itself would not on that account be a less arduous one.
Shrouded in its own misty breath, the meadow lay more and more closely hedged around by the dusky evening shadows. Over the lake the white cloud still hovered, but now it was only a formless, ever-shifting ma.s.s of vapour. The dream-picture which had risen from it, had vanished once more--whether it were forgotten could only be known to the two who walked on together silently side by side. Here in the dreary autumnal forests, in the eerie twilight hour, the old sea-legend from out of the far north had been wafted over to them, whispering anew the prophecy, "He who has once looked on Vineta will know no rest all his life for a longing to see the fair city again, even though he himself should be drawn down by it into the depths."
CHAPTER V.
The two rooms in the Castle occupied by Dr. Fabian looked out on to the park, and were in some measure shut off from the rest of the house.
There was a special reason for this. When the Princess caused the hitherto unused apartments of her first husband to be put in readiness for that husband"s son, some thought was naturally given to the ex-tutor who was to accompany him, and a room was prepared in consequence. It was rather small and very noisy, for it lay next to the main staircase; but, according to the lady"s notion, it was just suited to the Doctor. She knew that at Altenhof very little fuss had been made about him, especially by his former pupil. There must have been a considerable change in this respect, however, for on his arrival Waldemar had declared the accommodation to be quite inadequate, had caused the visitors" rooms on the other side of the house to be opened, and had sequestrated two of them to his friend"s use. Now these rooms had been specially fitted up for Count Morynski and his daughter, who often spent whole weeks at Wilicza. Of this fact the young owner of the place could not possibly be aware; but when Pawlick, who now filled the office of major-domo at the Castle, opened his mouth to reply, Waldemar stopped him with a brief inquiry as to whether the apartments in question formed part of the Princess"s suite, or of Prince Leo"s. On receiving an answer in the negative, he declared very decidedly, "Then Dr. Fabian will occupy them at once." That same day the corridor which ran close by, where the servants were constantly pa.s.sing up and down, was closed, and the order given that in future they were to go round by the other staircase, in order not to disturb the Doctor by running to and fro--and so the matter was settled.
The Princess said no word when informed of these occurrences. She had laid it down as a rule never to contradict her son in trifles. Other rooms were immediately prepared for her brother and niece. Still it was natural that she should look upon poor Fabian, the innocent cause of this mishap, with no very friendly eyes. She never made this apparent, it is true, for both she herself and the whole Castle soon came to know that Waldemar was exceedingly sensitive on the subject of his old tutor, and that, though he claimed little attention for himself, any failure of respect towards the Doctor would be most sharply reproved by him. This was almost the only point on which he a.s.serted his right to command; but on this head he spoke so emphatically that every one, from the Princess down to the domestics, treated Dr. Fabian with the utmost consideration.
It was no very hard task to be polite to the quiet, retiring man, who was always so modest and courteous, who stood in n.o.body"s way, required but very little attendance, and showed himself grateful for the smallest service. He was rarely seen except at table, for he spent the whole day over his books, and his evenings generally in the company of his old pupil, with whom he seemed on the most intimate footing. "He is the only being for whom Waldemar has any regard," the Princess said to her brother, when she explained to him the change in his quarters. "We must respect this whim, though I really do not understand what he can see in this tiresome professor. Formerly he used altogether to ignore the man, and now he makes quite a pet of him."
However it may have come about, the complete change in his circ.u.mstances had exercised an unmistakable influence on Dr. Fabian.
His timidity and modesty were conspicuous as ever; they were too deeply ingrained in his nature ever to be eradicated; but the anxious, depressed look, which had clouded his face of old, had disappeared with all that was painful in his position. He had grown stronger, healthier of aspect than in former days. The years spent at the University, and his subsequent travels, may have helped to transform the sickly, shy, neglected tutor into a well-bred man, whose pale but winning countenance and low sweet-toned voice impressed every one favourably, and whose timidity alone prevented him from appearing everywhere to advantage.
The Doctor had a visitor, a rare occurrence with him. By his side on the sofa sat no less a person than the Government a.s.sessor, Herr Hubert of L----, most peacefully minded on this occasion and indulging in no dreams of arrest. That former fatal error of his was precisely what had led to the acquaintanceship. Dr. Fabian had shown himself the one friend and consoler in the deluge of troubles which had poured down on the a.s.sessor"s devoted head when once the thing became known. This happened all too soon. Gretchen had been "heartless enough," as Hubert expressed it, to relate the story in fullest detail to her friends in L----. The tale of the master of Wilicza"s intended arrest went the round of the whole town; and, if no formal report of the affair was laid before the President, that magnate soon got to hear of it, and the over zealous official received a sharply worded piece of advice to be more prudent in future, and next time he was seeking to lay hands on secret Polish emissaries not to fix on a great German landowner, on whose att.i.tude so much might depend. The incident was known, too, in Wilicza. Waldemar himself had told the Princess--the whole neighbourhood knew of it, and wherever the unfortunate a.s.sessor put in an appearance, he was met by covert allusions or open taunts.
On the very day following his misadventure he had called on Herr Nordeck to offer his apologies, but had not found that gentleman at home. The Doctor, though himself an offended party, had behaved with generosity on this occasion. He received the crestfallen Hubert, consoled him to the best of his ability, and undertook to make his excuses for him. But the a.s.sessor"s contrition was neither of great depth nor duration. He possessed far too great a dose of self-importance to attain to any true knowledge of his own merits; and, like any steel spring, rebounded into his former position, so soon as the pressure was withdrawn. The general derision annoyed and hurt him, but his confidence in himself was in no degree shaken by it. Any one else after such a misfortune would have kept as quiet as possible, in order to let the remembrance of it die away, and would certainly not, for some time to come, have eagerly undertaken similar tasks. This, however, was precisely what Hubert did with a feverish zeal. The fixed idea had taken possession of him that he must make good his fiasco and show his colleagues, the President, and all L----, that, notwithstanding what had occurred, his intelligence was, beyond all doubt, of a superior order. It was absolutely necessary now that he should capture a couple of conspirators, or unearth a plot, no matter how or where; it grew to be, in some sort, a question of life or death with him, and he was constantly in pursuit of the object he had set himself to attain.
Wilicza still remained the focus of his observations; Wilicza, which in L---- was well known to be dangerous ground, and yet over which no hold could be obtained! There seemed less chance than ever of getting at the truth, for it was evident that all hopes founded on the master"s presence must be given up. He was, although a German, entirely in the hands of his Polish relations, and if not a consenting party, at least indifferent to their operations. This conduct, which was very generally condemned in L----, found its severest judge in the a.s.sessor. In a like position, how much more energetically would he have acted, how he at a blow would have extinguished and defeated their secret intrigues! He would have been a shining example of loyalty to the whole province, would have earned the grat.i.tude of the State and the admiration of the world in general. However, as he was not lord of Wilicza, nor even Counsellor as yet, no choice was left him but to set to work to discover the conspiracy which a.s.suredly existed. To this aim and object all his thoughts and endeavours now tended.
There was indeed no mention of such matters in the talk between the two gentlemen. The good-natured Dr. Fabian must not be allowed to perceive that this visit to him was prompted by a burning desire to effect an entrance into the Castle. The a.s.sessor had, therefore, sought a pretext in a subject which was certainly one of interest to him, but which he could very well have introduced at the steward"s house, where he and Fabian occasionally met.
"I have a favour to ask of you, Doctor," he began, after a few words of greeting and preface had been spoken, "a little claim to make on your kindness. It is not exactly a personal matter, but one concerning the Frank family at whose house you frequently visit. As Herr Nordeck"s former tutor, you are no doubt acquainted with French?"
"I speak it certainly," answered the Doctor; "but I have got rather out of practice during the last few years. Herr Nordeck does not like the language, and here at Wilicza every one pays us the attention of speaking German to us exclusively."